The Strangers Prey At Night

Have we really reached a point where films don’t need a plot? Obviously not, but The Strangers Prey At Night seems to pretty set on starting that trend as it navigates 90 minutes of screen time with around 90 seconds of that focused on plot thickening.

Mike (Martin Henderson) and Cindy (Christina Hendricks) head a family travelling to drop daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison) at boarding school for the first time. Stopping to visit family on the way, their night takes a sharp turn when three masked strangers start to follow them around a deserted camp site.

It’s a pretty shocking attempt, and really does throw the horror into disrepute before its final third ‘slasher-act’, which also happens to be 90% of the actual film. It’s intensely elongated, poorly organised, and irritating in its never ending processes. There is genuinely around 10 minutes of scene setting, and that allows the characters no room to grow into their roles, and however common it is to not care about characters in a horror film, The Strangers Prey At Night still suffers greatly.

The actual horror is well done, and considering how painfully long the chase is, it works far better than it should have done. It doesn’t make the film any more reputable, but it does make it slightly less mind-numbing.

A pointless showing of slasher, uneventful horror, with very little of note in its repertoire. The thought process behind it is clearly incredibly weak, and there is very little enjoyment to take from any section of The Strangers Prey At Night.